ong the orange-groves at Pasadena, from
his carpenter father in Joralemon, and from Gertie in New York, Carl
had invitations for Christmas, but none that he could accept. VanZile
had said, pleasantly, "Going out to the country for Christmas?"

"Yes," Cal had lied.

Again he saw himself as the Dethroned Prince, and remembered that one
year ago, sailing for South America to fly with Tony Bean, he had been
the lion at a Christmas party on shipboard, while Martin Dockerill,
his mechanic, had been a friendly slave.

He spent most of Christmas Eve alone in his room, turning over old
letters, and aviation magazines with pictures of Hawk Ericson,
wondering whether he might not go back to that lost world. Josiah
Bagby, Jr., son of the eccentric doctor at whose school Carl had
learned to fly, was experimenting with hydroaeroplanes and with
bomb-dropping devices at Palm Beach, and imploring Carl, as the
steadiest pilot in America, to join him. The dully noiseless room
echoed the music of a steady motor carrying him out over a blue bay.
Carl's own answer to the tempter vision was: "Rats! I can't very well
leave the Touricar now, and I don't know as I've got my flying nerve
back yet. Besides, Ruth----"

Always he thought of Ruth, uneasy with the desire to be out dancing,
laughing, playing with her. He was tormented by a question he had been
threshing out for days: Might he permissibly have sent her a
Christmas present?

He went to bed at ten o'clock--on Christmas Eve, when the streets were
surging with voices and gay steps, when rollicking piano-tunes from
across the street penetrated even closed windows, and a German voice
as rich as milk chocolate was caressing, "_Oh Tannenbaum, oh
Tannenbaum, wie gruen sind deine Blaetter._"... Then slept for nine
hours, woke with rapturous remembrance that he didn't have to go to
the office, and sang "The Banks of the Saskatchewan" in his bath. When
he returned to the house, after breakfast, he found a letter from
Ruth:

The Day before Xmas & all thru the Mansion
The Maids with Turkey are Stirring--Please Pardon the Scansion.

DEAR PLAYMATE,--You said on our tramp that I would make a
good playmate, but I'm sure that I should be a very poor one
if I did not wish you a gloriously merry Xmas & a New Year
that will bring you all the dear things you want. I shall be
glad if you do not get this letter on Xmas day itself if
that means that you are off at